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User blog:NaSenKa99/Regency Wars Part One
The sea here was impossibly blue, despite the unnaturally vast swells that heaved the wind-chopped surface. Enormous clouds of vapor still hung in the sky where four thermonuclear bombs had been blown up a few hundred feet below sea level, rivalling the billowing thunderheads that filled the Liujihua sky here near the equator. And bobbing in this tumultuous sapphire ocean was a long, lean dark shape. The Xinghua Xianjing-class submarine was clearly wounded, with several hull plates buckled and her camera mast snapped off, and smoke was coming out of several open hatches. Inside, Lieutenant Zhang Chun coughed, staggering, as the sub rocked again from another secondary explosion. A Shan missile had dropped down from orbit only minutes ago, detonating four nuclear depth charges. The Prince Yi's hull hadn't been crushed, but it had ruptured in multiple places, and their reactor had been damaged severely, forcing them to surface or else burn and suffocate and drown. The battered reactor was now sending irregular surges of power through the submarine's battered hull, and water in some areas meant that electrocution was an immense danger for damage control teams. The ruptures had also flooded a weapons bay, which was now also proceeding to set off secondary explosions to accompany the violent detonations of steam escaping their engine systems. Smoke filled the submarine's corridors thanks to electrical fires all around the boat. Combine that with near pitch-darkness besides the eerie orange glow of the emergency strips and the red flashes of the alarms, and it was like the galaxy's worst rave. Chun gasped as he threw open the hatch, struggling up onto the deck like a beached whale, lungs heaving in fresh air. The submarine rolled like a wounded animal in the swell, as Chun staggered to his feet, gaping at the huge plumes of steam and water the nukes had hurled skyward. How did they even find us? This was supposed to be the perfect op... ''The boat rocked again as another secondary rattled deep in its bowels. The ''Prince Yi's most precious cargo, however, was evidently secure- if it were not, he would only be an expanding cloud of superheated gas. The submarine was carrying nearly a kilo of antimatter, sealed in an ultra-hardened containment system. They had been heading to a base specifically built to be concealed from orbit and engage the besieging Shan fleet in orbit with special missiles, using antimatter warheads. Unfortunately, the only particle accelerators capable of manufacturing large quantities of the stuff were in hardened Arctic facilities thousands of miles away from the site, positioned for launch purposes near the equator- and so the Prince Yi had been sent deep, to carry a huge chunk of antimatter south where it would be put into warheads and fired up at the alien invaders. Chun felt certain they had some sort of countermeasure- perhaps it was stored in an escape pod or something, and could flee on its own, with robotic guidance. Maybe the Prince Yi had just been acting as fire support. Chun was knocked over by the missile explosion, thrown clear off the deck and sent rolling down the boat's side towards the waves. He landed, spluttering, as the rapid growl of rapid-fire kinetic weapons filled the air, a diabolical pinging sounding instants later as bullets chattered off of the submarine's hull. Thrashing in the water, Chun could suddenly make out a shape in the sky, smaller shapes falling from it... A Shan dropship. Chun gasped as a sharp pain suddenly seared through his chest, the water around him turning to red froth. A second stabbing pain ran through his leg as his vision darkened, the world fading, the water rising. The aliens knew, and now no one on Liuji could stop them. Category:Blog posts